Genius Unstrung
by Wraithwitch
Summary: A short series of connected scribbles showing how Holmes & Watson came to Baker Street, followed by much bickering both playful and painfully serious.
1. Baker Street Lodgings

**Baker Street Lodgings**

**I.**

Mrs Hudson had become used to a lot of things in her life.

She had at one time been a young and inexperienced wife who was barely able to cook a leg of lamb let alone run a household. But having a determination that rivalled her ignorance, she set herself the task of learning as quickly and as well as she was able. Bobby, god rest him, had bourn her early mistakes with good humour. That in the end was what she missed about Bobby the most: his rueful smile coupled with his phrase of, _'Oh my dear heart, what have you done?' _in such as way as it was both exclamation and endearment. He'd been a plain man with a wonderfully expressive mouth and eyes of an unusual sea-green. The deep blue and clear jade of his irises mixed, a perfect balance of tart and sweet, just like his humour.

It was, she knew, a weakness of hers, a chink in her everyday armour of shrewd practicality. Anyone who reminded her of her two children (whether Alice's unreasonable but sublime artistic passions, or Freddy's astute Engineer's mind so obsessed with figuring out how everything worked) or her husband (with that greengage and gooseberry jam personality – sharp at the edges but soft at heart) was granted liberties she would never permit anyone else.

It went, she realised, a very long way to explain why she had not evicted her current tenant.

**II.**

Upper Baker Street was fashionable, in a metropolitan and nouveau riche sort of manner. Close to Marylebone Station and next to Regent's Park: in some ways it straddled perfectly the old money and blood of England and the new industrial wealth of the Empire. For his part, he would have been happier in Soho or Southwark - half a parish away from the old Rookery of St Giles - amidst artists and prostitutes, market men and thieves.

But to do so would have made Mycroft unbearable.

Sherlock Holmes did not approve of compromise – certainly not in his own case at any rate. It showed a weakness of intellect: compromise demonstrated an inability to come up with a more satisfactory solution. However; where Mycroft was concerned Holmes had long since concluded compromise was its own victory.

Firstly, with Mycroft possessing an advantage in years (and therefore experience) as well as a lazy sort of deviousness he himself had yet to perfect, winning outright was rarely a realistic happenstance. Secondly, there was no one living on earth who knew Holmes better, which meant Mycroft knew above anyone else how to make himself most vexatious to his younger brother should he choose.

Lastly and most importantly, living in lodgings his brother tacitly approved of was present peace and later leverage purchased at a very cheap price indeed.

**III.**

"Mrs Hudson?"

The voice, although imperious, lacked its usual bite. (He had never quite forgiven her for 'ruining' his experiment back in March on the limits of human lung capacity. Or, as she saw it, finding him fully clothed, semi conscious and half drowned in the bathtub, and letting the water out.)

"Yes, Mr Holmes?"

His back was to her, he was still bent at what must have been an uncomfortable angle over the dining table, intent upon something which – from her perspective – looked likely to set his hair alight. She gathered up the two stray teacups she could see and put them on the supper tray. It didn't cause her to bat an eyelid or pass comment on the fact the supper tray was on the floor, having forfeited its rightful place on the table to whatever it was that currently held Sherlock Holmes' attention.

She briefly considered enquiring why the dish that held the potatoes now held the poached fish (minus parsley and roasted almonds), why the server that had held the fish was upside down, decorated with precariously balanced buttered potatoes, and where the cruet of hollandaise sauce had vanished to. Experience warned that any forthcoming answer more elaborate than a wry snort would either confound or worry her, so she held her tongue.

"Mrs Hudson I require tea, also crumpets – no, best make it scones - raspberry preserve. And cream."

"It's nine o'clock in the evening," she pointed out. "And you ate next to nothing of your supper." Honestly, it was as bad as living with a child.

"On the eighteenth at 1 o'clock - post, meridian, time." He spoke in a mildly distracted manner, like a tutor harried by a particularly slow pupil.

She'd been taken in by that infallible tone before; these days she liked to check he really did know what he was talking about. "That's tomorrow."

A slight tilt of the head with its shock of black hair and a shifting of the shoulders beneath the dark red ragged house-coat. "Is it?" He sounded genuinely puzzled.

Exasperation and amusement lit her eyes. "Yes."

"Hm."

A usual person – a normal person – would have said please. Would also have furnished her with such facts as the number of guests attending tea on the morrow and whether it was to be a formal or informal affair. The trouble was, Sherlock Holmes was anything but ordinary – extraordinary to the point of unreason and the most singular of individuals. (Or at least she rather hoped he was exceedingly singular; the thought of the world containing another like him was terrifying. After all, they might meet, and then what? It didn't bear thinking about.) For her lodger, the answers to all her petty questions were perfectly clear, and as such he didn't bother to waste breath in elucidation.

Mrs Hudson counted slowly to ten in the privacy of her skull. "How many people will be attending this tea, Mr Holmes?"

"Hm?" He twisted round, eyes wide, taking in the detail of everything he saw in an instant, focus broad and sharp.

She realised he was surprised she was still there, his attention had been swallowed again by his scientific tinkering, he'd dismissed her from his thoughts and as such she'd ceased to exist.

A second passed as he divined her query, either through memory or some more arcane method. (The fact her keychain hung to the right perhaps, she thought sarcastically.) "Only one. Your new lodger."

Her eyebrows raised.

He smiled, slightly rakish and charming. "Pending your approval of course."

"Of course," she echoed.

The Prendergast boy, a medical student at St Barts, had moved in at the same time as Mr Holmes but had moved out again within a term. (She could still remember how he had stood, with his coat over his arm, hat and bag in hand, looking earnest and awkward. "I am so very sorry to be a nuisance – well, inconvenience to you, Mrs Hudson. But I really can't stay here another night. I am, frankly, in fear of my life. He has no malice in him," and here he'd gestured with his hat upstairs, clearly meaning his fellow lodger. "But I won't allow a lack of criminal intent to be the death of me. I'll be leaving directly." A beat. "You run a lovely house, Mrs Hudson. Please don't hesitate to send word to me should the rooms become available." The polite but almost comically stern way he spoke left no doubt he meant 'without Holmes'.)

As such she didn't hold out high hopes for this new potential lodger; either he would not be able to stomach her current tenant, or – and here was a discomforting thought – he would, because he'd be just as bad. And then no doubt the house would burn down or Mrs Hudson would send herself to Virginia Waters for a rest cure.

Some days, it really was a wonder to her that so many people had met Mr Holmes and lived to tell the tale. Then again, with that brain of his, no one would ever find the bodies...


	2. Stiff Upper Lip

**Stiff Upper Lip**

**I.**

On the morning he talked to Stamford, Watson was hungry, hung-over, and the proud owner of three pounds entire (a decent to princely sum to burn about town depending on one's taste's and standards, but less then promising for the procurement of lodgings). He was also sleep-deprived, thin as a runner-bean, tanned as a Sudanese pot-boy and offended by the medic's abhorrently bright cravat which caused him to wince just as much as the piercingly bleak winter sun.

Watson's clothes were ill-fitting, his temper short, his head aching and his eyes more bloody then blue. All in all he was in a bullish mood, but when Stamford mentioned the friend in need of a lodger, his spirits lifted. Like a horse coming into the home strait or the perfect moment when the dice were still spinning and the ivories could show any face at all, he felt it - that strange pull of being on the cusp. His luck was about to change.

And then the dour bastard had done his best to spoil it by starting to list this acquaintance's faults, making him out to be a regular maniac who kept peculiar hours, beat corpses and possessed a curiosity that sounded not just morbid but downright toxic. And instead of backing off, as would have been sensible, hands up in surrender, a wan smile on his face in acknowledgement of his defeat... Watson had squared his shoulders.

The world be damned if it thought it could run him off. A band of forty Ghazis screaming towards him scared him. The thought of having his body or mind so mangled all he could do was lie in a bed and drool scared him. Stamford's peculiar and ghoulish friend did not, in any way, make the grade.

So it was that he first met Sherlock Holmes at St Barts not out of interest, nor really out of convenience – but out of a bloody-mindedness that bordered sheer perversity.

There was only one man in the lab when he and Stamford arrived, working at the table at the far end of the room. The figure turned as soon as the door closed, calling out excitedly some babble about haemoglobin and then informing Stamford as an aside that his new cravat and ill-judged growth of facial hair would not endear Julia to him one iota. The medic looked ready to commit murder, amicability drowned in bile. The man appeared unperturbed and continued to talk ten to the dozen about his experiment, Stamford and the elusive Julia quite forgotten. Watson's immediate impression was of a wiry and unkempt individual, something in his aspect suggesting an artist or – yes, a deranged scientist.

Stamford kept his distance as he made introductions, as if unwilling to get within arm's reach, or possibly still considering violence and so removing himself from temptation.

Beneath the tousled hair were a pair of dark eyes that saw to the doctor's very soul in one glance and almost but not quite dismissed him as _'adequate'_. Watson was so used to looks holding an edge of uncertainty or pity that he quite forgot to be offended by such a mediocre surmising of his character.

"A veteran - of Afghanistan," he noted as if commenting on the weather, speaking with Sunday-school politeness. "I trust your convalescence proceeds apace..."

Watson glanced at Stamford, seeking explanation, but the medic just sent him back a _'You think you have problems?'_ look.

The madman meanwhile had waved a hatpin around, rattling on further about his experiment and a need for a fresh sample... He was suddenly close – familiarly so – and a hand had closed on the doctor's wrist, the bodkin seeking his skin. Without thinking Watson snapped his left hand against the offending fingers and their weapon. That soul-stripping gaze again, only this time the conclusion was _'interesting,'_ like a reagent in an experiment which had produced unexpected results. They held that tableaux for a moment before one of them or both reached an acceptance of sorts. The madman uncurled his hand as if he'd meant to all along and stabbed the needle into his own finger, adding the bright beads of blood to some water.

"The proportion cannot be more than one in a million. I have no doubt, however..." He threw in some crystals which looked like rock salt but could have been anything, and then a minute measure of the clear liquid he'd been fussing over. His movements were like that of a gentleman conjurer; this Holmes, Watson noted, apparently enjoyed an audience.

In an instant the contents assumed a dull mahogany colour, and a brownish dust was precipitated to the bottom of the glass jar. He looked at the other two with a beam of triumph, seemingly out of all proportion to his non-descript chemical blood-hound. "See – it reacts with the iron whether the blood is new or old. I have perfected a test, the practical applications of which will alter both... chemical and criminal history!"

Watson raised an eyebrow and refined his view from 'madman' to 'egomaniac'.

"Criminal cases are continuall_y _hinging upon such questions, and lack of scientific evidence hinders the constabulary..." The slightest of pauses and a private quirk of the brows as if in his consideration the police were hindered by a lot more besides. "But now we have the Holmes test – or... Vernet perhaps - and there will no longer... _be any difficulty_." His eyes fairly glittered as he spoke, as if he was in dinner-dress presenting such findings to the Royal Society and not in tatty shirt sleeves showing it to a student and an ex-soldier.

"Congratulations," Watson remarked wryly, wondering why it was again that he'd left his bed that morning.

Holmes, still smiling, soaked the blood from his finger with the end of his already loosened and shoddy cravat as if it was a tanner's rag and not a piece of tailored silk.

Stamford took the opportunity to cut in and get down to cases, although he still remained nonchalantly out of reach – a fact Holmes noticed and was amused by – or so Watson guessed, unable to think up another explanation for the man's quietly superior smile; it was like an unseen cat watching a mouse. "Fascinating as this is, we actually came here on business," said the student, sitting down on a high three-legged stool, trying without success to stamp his own authority on the situation. From his acerbic cast there was a possibility that _'and Julia is none of your damn business'_ could be revealed like invisible ink from the citric-acid of his tone and the heat of his annoyance. "My friend here's after digs and you were complaining about the price of your rooms. I thought you might find a use for each other."

Sherlock Holmes' frenetic edge abated; he fished a pipe from his pocket and proceeded to pack and light it, his expression slightly hazed as if considering a grand philosophical theory and not just a potential room-mate. He exhaled smoke rumatively through his nose, a deranged and mysterious occidental dragon. "You don't mind the smell of strong tobacco, I hope?"

For reasons he couldn't fathom, Watson had the feeling he was being chased off. "I always smoke 'ship's' myself," he answered levelly.

"I have hazardous chemicals about. I do experiments. I do not keep things in their proper place. The test last week was quite ruined by a spoon contaminated with blackberry preserve – by which I must conclude the rod tainted with copper-sulphate went in the jam. I set fire to the Ottoman the week before – or the one before that – _no doubt Mrs Hudson had marked it as a black day in her calendar._ Would such annoy you?"

"So long as you do not object to me dousing you and your more incendiary experiments, or to dining only after I'm certain you're still alive," Watson countered grimly.

His tone although still civil had a belligerent edge; had the words been different this would have been an argument. "Let me see, what else? I play the violin – both sublimely and like a crippled gypsy, depending on my mood. I keep unsociable hours and unsociable company – namely my own. When occupied I have no time for anything save what I'm working on. When adrift I have nothing but time... and I make poor use of it." There was a slyness to his words as if they were a cipher, the truth of which would cause any acquaintance to wash their hands of him entirely.

Watson regarded him, unmoved, stubborn, waiting.

And just like that his demeanor changed. Amusement and good humour replaced his earlier caginess, all trace of challenge gone. "What have you to confess? It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another."

Watson wondered if he'd passed Holmes' test or if the other man had simply tired of it. "I keep a bull pup. I object to rows. I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and can be extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."

He laughed, sudden and sardonic, although Watson was at a loss to discern what amused him so. "Call for me here at noon tomorrow, and we'll go to Baker Street and settle everything," he decided, a General dismissing his troops.

"All right - noon exactly," Watson agreed, deciding there and then to be late.

**II.**

_The autumn day was a brisk one; a chill breeze whisked copper leaves and scraps of fog along the pavements and inbetween the booted feet of the barrow boys as they set up in Marylebone Square. The new-risen sun glinted off the lingering puddle ice and the frost which still capped the city's cobblestones, and would no doubt prove a hazard to the unwary for some hours to come. _

I had dressed and called for breakfast at eight; I had errands to run in town and didn't want the day to be wasted on such trivialities. I noticed Holmes' door was shut and all was silent in his room as I passed; he would sleep until noon if given the opportunity.

_I have mentioned before my fellow lodger's peculiar habits and irregular keeping. I feel however if you knew him, you would be sure to allow that his eccentricities are a trifling price to pay in the service of the grand and formidable engine of his mind._

_Holmes had indeed of late bowed his intellect to a worthy cause, investigating a smuggling ring and the disappearance of a young shipping clerk that had the Yard scratching their collective brows. _

_He had for the past week been to Rotherhithe and the East India docks at all hours of the day and night. I had seen little of him and from Mrs Hudson's complaints on the matter if he was eating it was not from her ample table. From my own humble observations I would hazard he hadn't been sleeping much either; the clutter in his room grew greater by degrees as did the clutter across his counterpane and the tobacco ash in the trays. Holmes had returned to his rooms only to smoke and pace and puzzle out some new piece of information that was troubling him. Despite the great respect I have for my friend's intelligence and his extraordinary skill at disguise and dissembling, I freely admit the concern I felt for him. Docklands is a notoriously uncivilized corner of the capital, and any mistake on Holmes' behalf could easily result in the most unpleasant of circumstances..._

A crumpled-up ball of paper hit him with stinging accuracy on the side of the head, an inch from his eye. Watson's lips pressed a little harder together, but other than that he showed no reaction. Several moments passed in which he attempted to pick up the unravelling threads of his thoughts.

A second missile traversed the sitting room and connected with his head. Without looking away from his work he picked up a waistcoat that was lain on the back of the sofa and flung it in Holmes' direction with some force and much frustration.

There was a sound that suggested Holmes had reached out and intercepted the garment in mid-flight and was now putting it on. "Much obliged, old boy."

Dear god, that man could really be the limit some days. "You just threw paper at me like a schoolboy so I'd eventually lose my temper and throw back the nearest thing to hand. All this just because you couldn't be bothered to walk across the room and fetch a waistcoat yourself?"

The detective sauntered towards the fireplace, fixing his pipe with tobacco as he went. He was now wearing the source of contention - inside out. _"No,"_ he drew the word out as if that underlined the depth of error in Watson's reasoning. "I threw paper at you so you would retaliate, true. I thought it unlikely you'd fling away the daybook you were filling so diligently, so the waistcoat was logical. However, your patience with me really can be most inconvenient at times; further provocation would be needed for a true reaction. Making you believe that gaining the clothing in such an idiotic manner had been my purpose all along would vex you sufficiently to cease writing, which was what I desired."

He sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "What reason could you possibly have for wanting me to stop writing?"

Holmes smiled around his pipe; it was something of a rictus expression, too strained to be sincere. "It's the Farson case."

Watson wondered if there was perhaps a gentleman's club somewhere for those who lived in the presence of genius and found it quite as impossible as he. There were clubs in London for everything else. Hm. Perhaps he could start one...? He didn't ask how Holmes knew which case he was writing up. "Yes it's the Farson case. Why do you..."

"I detest that case," he said, words clipped with petulance.

Watson's face was the very definition of concern and contrition. "My dear chap, I didn't realise you were so affected by it! Of course I'll stop, you had only to ask. There are plenty of other cases I could write up. The Hocksley Road incident - or that engaging little matter with Lord Rufus..."

Both those had been barely mitigated disasters.

Both those had been Adler.

His eyes narrowed. "Deviousness is not an attractive character trait."

But by then Watson was laughing too much to hear.

**III.**

The newspaper rustled as Watson flicked a crease out of the pages so he could continue reading. "It claims here that sixty three percent of people when asked their opinion on the matter, couldn't discern the one from the other..."

In the other chair Holmes gestured with his bow, his voice low and unpunctuated. "Yes, but seventy percent of people are idiots so what does that prove?"

The doctor smirked. These were his favourite mornings, ones that contained coffee and lazy banter as they lounged informally by a fresh fire and the remains of breakfast. "It proves that newspaper men would be better served canvassing the populace on their intelligence, rather than..."

"Canvassing an idiot on the quality of his intellect only serves to quiz him," Holmes quipped.

"You'd know all about that, I suppose?"

"Why else do you think I palm Lestrade off on you so often?"

He rattled the newspaper in mock irritation. "Ah, I forgot, your precious attention must not be taxed with such prosaic matters..."

"Do I detect a certain..."

"Your vaulted brilliance is all well and good dear chap – wouldn't change it for the world – but really, half the time you can't tie your own shoes."

A look. "What precisely are you suggesting?"

In reply, not quite a smirk. "You know exactly what I'm suggesting. That your knowledge - whilst astounding - is deeply flawed."

"Do you say that as a gambling man?"

"As a – if you're asking do I have the balls to risk hard sterling – yes, yes I do."

"A wager then. I propose a starter of five." A wicked look of satisfaction and further ribbing to come. "If your pocket book is empty I could always have you write a cheque..."

Watson was pulling five pound notes from his wallet. "No thank you. Besides, who says you'll win? Come on, pony up - no stake, no play, old boy."

With a flourish Holmes added his five pound note to the pile, smoothing them all out and aligning them on the table between them.

"Fifteen questions of my choosing. You get more than ten of them right and you've won the..."

"You said right," Holmes interposed, addressing his remark to the ceiling.

"Yes, I..."

"Not 'correct'. Which implies the correct answer is not always the one required for the purpose of this exercise."

Watson was grinning ruefully. _Smart bastard._

"What is the definition of 'right' in this context, exactly?"

The doctor was unsympathetic. "You're the detective, you work it out."

Holmes grinned back to match. "Right."

"What is the name of the theory that describes the movement of the earth around the sun and as such forms a basis of our understanding of the solar system?"

His jaw grew slack and his skin paler. "Such an arrangement would expose us to cosmic waves of untold harm. You mustn't joke about such things." His colour returned along with a too-wise smile. "Besides, it's painfully obvious the earth revolves around the moon."

"What's the easiest way to win a wager?"

He was perfectly still for a second and then wrenched forward and snatched up the notes from the table before rocking back to the depth of his chair and looking smug.

"Holmes..."

"Did I win?"

"Holmes!"

He gave a sigh along with a little smile and returned the money to the table. "Satisfied?"

"Barely. Who said the following? _Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one... A man's felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind: a person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus... If what you have done is unjust, you have not succeeded_."

A lazy, wolfish curling of the lips. "Me."

He resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. "What's the most unusual job you've ever had?"

A beat. "Thief."

"Describe to me the philosophy followed and preached by the Classical poet Horace."

He tilted his head to the side, searching the attic of his mind. _"Hoc volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas."_

He was pretty certain that wasn't Horace – although it was very Holmes. A sudden thought as a point of curiosity flared. "How many languages do you speak?"

"Ah," he murmured unhappily. "_Ikug pa. Ego teneo nusquam. Je ne parle aucune langue. Je suis muet... Warum fragst du?" _

He snorted his amusement at the blank look of innocence coupled so blithely with what words he could translate or guess. "Hm. If I had mud on my boots when I returned here, where would you surmise I'd been walking to?"

A calculating glare. "Boots?"

"Shoes," Watson allowed.

"Colour?"

"Of the..."

"Mud."

"Grey."

"Secondary hue?"

He shrugged. "Blue-ish."

"Texture – granular or smooth?"

"Smooth."

"Ha!" he snapped the bow like a whip at the arm of the chair. "I'd say you'd taken a cab and hadn't walked _to_ anywhere."

"Picky," he groused. He had to admit Holmes was doing rather well. "What's the swiftest way to a man's heart?"

"Through his stomach."

Watson raised an eyebrow; that was quite the claim from one would could subsist on coffee and tobacco for days at a time.

"A fine blade thrust up through the esophagus and diaphragm will – even if ill-angled - spear the lung and enter the lower chambers of the heart. Since it is the surest strike without the risk of deflection by bone it is also, ergo, the swiftest one as it eliminates nearly all chance of error and the requirement of a messy repeat performance."

"Bloody charming," Watson muttered, hiding his eyes briefly beneath his hand. "Have you ever tried to set yourself on fire?"

Eyebrows shot up, disappearing beneath the mop of haphazard fringe. _"Tried?! _My dear fellow, I thought you lived here?_"_

He ploughed on. "If you slept outside in Regent's Park around the time of the autumn equinox, what stars would you see?"

"Trick question," Holmes dismissed flatly with a sniff. "I'd have a tent."

"All right. What's the best piece of advice you've ever given?"

"_Be silent!"_ he barked, and then grinned crookedly into his collar.

The doctor's mouth crimped as he struggled not to laugh. "Who's the Chancellor of the Exchequer?"

"An idiot. A _liberal_ idiot," he amended grandly, showing he at least knew which party was in power.

"What is the worst thing you've ever done?"

Something in his expression locked down, a portcullis slammed over thoughts and emotions. "Failed," he whispered.

Watson hurried onwards. "If a forward young lady - well versed in the language of flowers - sent a token of her regard to you, what flora would you expect in the bouquet?"

A sharp look that turned dreamy. "Opium poppy, monkshood, belladonna, foxglove, wolfsbane, belvedere and hemlock. With such she would prove that either she perceived my character acutely enough not to send roses and some hot-house monstrosity, or she would be trying to kill me - in which case she has both my interest and my attention."

Dear god what was wrong with the man – he wasn't normal. Morbid prying bid him use his last question thus: "Who would be your perfect spouse?"

He twitched the bow through the air like a metronome and turned his head towards the ceiling. "Someone intriguing, active, with strength of character. Able to stand me without indulging me, a companion and confident. Someone I could trust. One who knew of the world and was neither cowed nor in awe of it..." Molten mahogany eyes turned down and locked upon the doctor in an instant. "Marry me, Watson," he entreated.

With a long-suffering grin, Watson was already reaching for the nearest object of least value and greatest durability to throw at the detective.

**

* * *

Notes on Questions:**

1- We're told Watson originally made his list of Holmes' limits because he'd apparently never heard of Copernican Theory. I suspect the detective was being facetious about that and several other matters.

2- Stolen from RDJ interview.

3 - Apparently Holmes didn't recognize Thomas Carlyle quotes, which given his popularity of the time is a bit like someone claiming to be utterly ignorant of Shakespeare or Harry Potter.

4- RDJ again.

5- Horace was an Epicurean ('nothing to excess') – Holmes quotes Juvenal instead; a more bitter, visceral, funny and political satirist by far. Translation: "I will it, I order it, let my will stand for a reason." _Satire VI_

6- Holmes says 'I'm stupid', in Tibetan, 'I know nothing' in Latin, 'I speak no languages, I'm mute,' in French and 'Why do you ask?' in German. Sorry if translation is awful, only had bablefish etc to go on.

7- "Geology – practical but limited" so notes Watson in Canon.

8- Anatomy – 'practical'.

9- RDJ, although he was asked 'Have you ever tried to light a fart?' 'Tried?!'

10- A nod to the lovely Holmes and Watson star-gazing joke.

11- RDJ.

12- Knowledge of politics – 'feeble'.

13- One of mine.

14- Incidentally the flowers in that bouquet would translate thus: Opium poppy - oblivion, monkshood – chivalry and knighthood, belladonna - silence, foxglove - a wish, wolfsbane – misanthropy, belvedere - I declare war against you, hemlock – you will be my death. Rather Irene Adler, no?

15- Couldn't resist =)


	3. Genius Unstrung

**Genius Unstrung**

**I.**

Intelligence was not an attribute overly admired by the native Englishman. No, the British preferred a slightly hypocritical honesty, a strong arm and good manners. The phrase 'he's a decent chap' had its polar opposite in the saying 'too clever by half'.

Holmes was of course not only too clever by half but by a whole – several wholes, and then a half or two after that.

It was why initially he'd taken up boxing and fencing at school; excelling at sport was encouraged in a way that success within academia was not. Good chaps were in the Rugby First Fifteen; those to be found with their nose buried in a book had better be possessed of a sparkling wit or very deep pockets if they hoped to be socially accepted. Holmes by the age of thirteen had already concluded social acceptance was not something he craved – indeed he saw it a very poor pursuit.

His school days however were not the misery of casual punches and ritual humiliation that many bright boys endured. In part it was because of his capacity for brilliance: when the mood took him no one was able in invent, to scintillate, to surprise like he could. But mostly it was because life at school was a form of cold war fought on every front, and Holmes was a master tactician. It was learnt (and by certain individuals, learnt hard) that any offensive waged against his person or his property would be revisited in full and in such a way that could not be traced back to his door.

In that, he was remarkably like his brother.

**II.**

Holmes had an empty bottle in his hand with which he gesticulated vaguely. "It was obvious he was going to lose."

"Obvious?" Watson's cane rapped sharply on the bare boards. "Yes, when he was pummelling your ribs I thought to myself, _Tompkin the Grand – now there's a man who looks like he's losing!_ When his fist smashed into the side of your head..."

"Sarcasm," Holmes murmured with what might have been disapproval.

"When he..."

"It was _obvious_ his ankle had been broken and not been given time to heal..."

"Yes, I did see the match - you may recall - I was there." Watson spoke just so he wouldn't remember Holmes' take down of Tompkin nor hear that double snap in his mind – it had been grim enough the first time.

A loose shrug. "He was a fool for stepping into the ring in the first place."

"You'd do it." It was an accusation.

Holmes mused unsteadily upon the infinite of the middle distance.

"Yes," the doctor replied for him. "You would. You are, after all, a man who'd starve himself for a week, go without sleep, dab laudanum on like cologne – not to mention knocking back a shot of the stuff - just to make a more convincing opium addict. Why should I think for one second that you wouldn't go to a boxing match when..."

"You seem unconvinced I should be lauded as any sort of inspiration," he complained. "I got Mortimer out of that business with Chen Lee and Oldgate."

"Yes," he sighed. "You did."

A smile and lighting of the eyes, an expression almost child-like in its purity. "I suppose... I must be some sort of genius after all."

Watson was pacing; he told himself it was so his leg wouldn't stiffen in the cold, but it was simply because Holmes caused him to pace – that man cost him miles of worry and pacing. "It just doesn't enter into your calculations that you might slip up? Get your brains smacked out in the ring, give yourself a heart attack or liver failure with some concoction you'd drunk, shatter your legs from jumping from windows..."

"I calculate the risk." His tone was modified to placate the doctor's blatant overreaction.

He looked at him with scrutiny. "Do you? I don't think you do."

"I calculate everything," he said simply.

"So you don't believe you put yourself at risk?"

He laughed, bright and bloody. "My dear fellow, of course I do. Doubtless my day-to-day domestic life contains more peril than..."

"For god's sake be serious!" Watson exploded.

He looked almost hurt. "I was. I was also being facetious, I grant you, but I didn't mean to suggest..."

"Stop prevaricating."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You're on a case that has had you running through Docklands at all hours of the day and night in a stoker's cap and a second-hand coat on the trail of two men who've proved they're more than willing to kill to get their own way. You barely eat, barely sleep, and after nearly two weeks of this - because only one has been caught and the other evaded the Yard - you come here to punish yourself..."

He winced, a martyred looked pinned in place by his eyebrows. "It's not punishment."

"Then what would you call it? You can't keep on like this, Holmes. You're not just burning the candle at both ends you're throwing the damn thing straight into the fire."

He canted his brow. "What a vivid choice of metaphor. You know I think there might be something in this writing of yours after all..."

The doctor cursed himself. After a fight, tired, pained, inebriated – this was when Holmes was accessible. When his body and brain were dulled sufficiently to make him almost human and not some stalking demi-god crackling with pent up energy and super-intelligence. So why was he wasting it, sparking an argument? "Stop it, stop being so bloody clever and listen to me..."

"I am listening to you," he pointed out reasonably. "My dear boy, I've..."

"Well you're not hearing me. Is it really worth the risk? You know McAlister will come after you."

"And here I thought it was the pugilism you objected to..." He dropped the bottle he held as if it was to blame. (The bottle, with no sense of the dramatic, failed to smash.)

"Holmes!" he hissed – investing the word with a wealth of pent-up resentment. "You'd die for a case?" That, he realised as he said it, was the bone that was suck in his throat, the shard of a thought that was choking him.

A superior look, very calm and cool. The kind of look that had no business at all being on a man whose shirt was open, ruined with blood and sweat, whose body was darkening with bruises and whose face was bleeding. "Most people die for nothing at all, should I not count myself lucky my ending, like my life, would have held purpose?"

Watson's anger peeked in a rush and he considered hitting him. _No, you bloody fool, because you'd still be dead. What would the Yard do then? What would I do? What would all those people who pin their hopes on you to solve their problems do? Who would stop the tragedies and injustice then?_

But he didn't speak; he could tell both from the cold glassy set to the eyes and by how the detective swayed that he'd lost him. The mellow phase had passed, sinking suddenly into exhaustion. He hadn't expected Holmes to say anything further, had expected him either to collapse onto the knackered chaise-longue without ceremony, letting the doctor see himself out; or perhaps to leave, falling down the stairs and weaving his way unsteadily back to Baker Street where he could pass out in relative comfort.

"Fine." His words were off-handedly brash, bordering on brittle. "I'm just a reckless daredevil dandy," he spun as he spoke, "dicing unnecessarily with death for the thrill of it." He wheeled closer. "I'm patently very brave," he informed him.

"You're very drunk."

"I'm not," he replied emphatically. His voice was no longer in focus; the accent of cut glass vowels wrapped in velvet was beginning to wander. He suddenly remembered. "I have to go – I need to look up a book - papers. This instant!" He smacked his hand against the surface he was leaning on to punctuate his point. Then he gazed at his stinging hand with its busted knuckles he'd caused to bleed again. "That hurt."

"We'll have matching bruises," Watson said dryly.

**III.**

The price of being Sherlock Holmes, was _being _Sherlock Holmes. That brilliant shining steel trap of a mind held him in its teeth as surely as it clamped unfailingly around the criminals he chased. For them, as for him, there was no escape from it.

The sheer volume of data that it processed was unceasing, the details it noted and catalogued nearly overwhelming. And yet, even now, it continued to surprise him just how little people noticed – how little they engaged the logical faculties of thought.

At times it brought him to a lonely sort of despair: how could no one else see what was so plain – so glaringly obvious to him? Plenty of people had perfectly serviceable brains, yet they stumbled about through life no better than sightless beggar children in a muddy ditch. If they ever managed to conclude anything worthwhile it was generally by accident. At first it had delighted him to explain his reasoning, the links of logic that had unravelled the puzzle a piece at a time. He had smiled at the exclamations of astonishment, the praise that flowed his way. But he tired of it and eventually found it more of an irritant than a balm. He didn't want to be admired. He wanted someone else to see – to comprehend.

Watson did see (even if comprehension was often piecemeal, tardy or absent.) And – admittedly the more telling fact – they not only bore but actively complimented each other. Holmes added an element of the unpredictable and bohemian to the doctor's world, without which he would have gambled away every penny he owned and become destitute long since in an underhand bid to escape the staid respectability he thought he craved. For his part, the doctor managed Holmes wonderfully. His imperiousness was laughed at, his dark moods kicked, his endeavours supported or destroyed depending on their level of sanity and relevance. His wilfulness was shouted at, his banter met, his escapades fondly admired (when they weren't mocked). In short, Watson acted as a limit upon the furthest excesses of Holmes' habits, both providing something for him to push against and ensuring he didn't destroy himself in the process.

_In the valley of the blind, the one eyed man was king._

Holmes had always had both eyes painfully wide open, unable to close them for a second even against the glare of the sun at noon. He had perfected the jaunty indifference with which he wore his crown, but it did weigh damnably heavy some days none the less.


	4. Broken in Blood and Bond

**Broken in Blood and Bond**

**I.**

"What the hell is he playing at?" A voice snapped. Although, since it was Lestrade who'd spoken, the words were closer to _'wottha ell ize playin aht?'_ and their meaning was more aligned with _'if I could, I'd throttle the crazy little bleeder'._

"He not on the level, sir?" One of the Yarders asked.

The Inspector pulled a disagreeable face. "No, Mister Holmes doesn't lie, but he's not exactly free an' easy with what he knows either. Come on..."

That, Watson thought, was the crux of the matter. Holmes didn't deliberately seek to deceive those he aided (not often, well, not without good reason anyway) but he had a way of just looking at one, eyes wide, brows slightly raised, that really was an open invitation for anyone present to fill in the gaps. That and the vast discrepancy between what one could discern from looking at Holmes and what he could discern from anyone that fell within his gaze really was most off-putting. He could look at a man and tell his job, his social position, his habitation, his hobbies and goodness knows what else besides. When one looked at Holmes, one beheld a man, obviously intelligent, self possessed, educated, bohemian and possibly unhinged. There the deductions ceased, and the rumours started.

There were a lot of stories about Holmes, they permeated the city like the fog, flowed like the Thames until he had become as much a part of the city as the Grey Ghost of Dury Lane. Watson himself had heard many stories. They were the cheaper, gutter-snipe yellow-curtain sort of tales recounted in penny-gaffs or swapped over drinks: the kind that would make one think that Sherlock Holmes was somehow more than human. (Inhuman, Watson preferred upon occasion.)

They were the sort of tales that always circled the ale-houses, flop-houses and gin-mills; stories dropped in amidst those of Springheeled Jack and Cholera Mary, designed to awe or terrify. Watson had to admit that it didn't take much exaggeration for Holmes to achieve either. The only reason he had become inured to it was – like a resistance to arsenic built up in daily doses, he'd learnt to live with the toxin – the unfathomable phenomenon that was Sherlock Holmes.

He'd been with Holmes once in a public house down in Borough, packed tight at the bar with flower girls and barrow boys, when a story started up at the table behind them. Watson had been of a mind to interrupt, but Holmes had touched a hand to his arm and given a slight smile, a slight shake of the head, and settled his elbows more solidly on the bar to listen. The tale, as it happened, had been pretty outrageous. (Unless Watson was very much mistaken, his friend had never rescued a young Duchess from a band of thieves intent of relieving her of her diamonds and her virtue and then turned down her marriage proposal but kindly accepted her handkerchief as a keepsake.) Despite the ridiculous and nonsensical romanticised drivel spouted at their backs for nearly an hour straight, Holmes simply slouched comfortably at the bar, twisting his glass between his palms, smiling secretively down at the worn tabletop.

Watson found he was grinning at the memory. That had been back at the beginning, after the second case he'd attended. He'd been innocent – unaware of the world the man inhabited. Unaware of the man himself come to that.

His pale blue eyes frowned at nothing in particular and the smile faded. Of course, it was around about case number three that he had a) begun to discover how extraordinary Holmes was and b) thought the extraordinariness he had witnessed was all there was to it. In short, to his shame, he had thought he knew the length and breadth of the character and capacity of one Sherlock Holmes. Back then he had no true conception of how terrifying the man could be. He was wiser now; but sometimes enlightenment was a lot like drinking caustic soda.

He imagined that villains, blackguards and ne'er-do-wells of the criminal class found Holmes somewhat disconcerting. Maybe even a deterrent. But none of them could possibly (of this he was certain) be as terrified by the man as Watson was on a weekly basis. You see, Holmes, like arsenic - although surprisingly possessed of a thousand uses - was still poisonous. And one either adapted when exposed to him, or died.

Living with the man was like living with a mentalist who read your thoughts as clearly as if they were written in flame above one's brow. Keeping rooms with him got one to thinking that wasting a week trying to discover an element obtained from hydrofluoric acid (and accidentally dying the hearth rug an unpleasant yellow) was an acceptable pass-time. Or that breakfast could be eaten at three am and dinner at eleven. That a window was not only a viable but perfectly pedestrian exit from a building. That dressing and working as a Navvy for a week was fine so long as it uncovered the information sought. It was, coincidentally, around about that time that one found oneself not only entering fights on Holmes' behalf, but considering stepping in the way of bullets for the man. One did this in hope of limiting – curtailing - the sheer insanity that every-day existence was forever spiraling into.

And so it was that one day (and Watson was hard pressed to pinpoint exactly which morning it had been) one awoke to discover one was keeping rooms with a myth (not a legend, legends are real, and this man – dear god – was so unreal). And Watson could recall feeling violently nauseous that day, sick to his stomach, although at the time he didn't know why. He knew now, however.

That was the day he was irreparably changed, in body, mind and soul: that was his point of no return. That was the day (in the back room of his mind, where things were quietly mulled over with a glass of something warming on a cold night) that he reached his own conclusion. It was nothing spectacular, it was simply the result of the amalgamation of all he had witnessed and experienced ever since meeting Holmes with Stamford.

It ran like this: Holmes was mind-shatteringly brilliant. So brilliant, he did not weigh the consequences of his actions as mere mortals did. As such, he had a distressing inability to recognize personal space, property, propriety, social form or function, or why he should not risk life and limb for any case he was involved in. So it fell to Watson to provide a point of bathos, of hubris and of haven to Holmes' greatness lest it prove his undoing.

No, Holmes may be a demonic figure to those of England who partook in nefarious activities... But it was those few who cared for him, trapped in his world like wasps in honey or moths courting a flame, that he truly terrified without meaning to in the least.

**II.**

"_HMS Watson_ and _HMS Point_ have once again passed in the night," Holmes commented with languid scorn.

There was something in the tone, a belittling slant that was usually reserved for Lestrade at his dullest or those who's just lied to the detective and believed they'd got away with it. It was a low punch in the gut for Watson to hear it levelled at him; shock held him for a moment before anger rose like a typhoon. "And that would make the great Sherlock Holmes - what?" he mused with venom. "The Needles of rocky truth against which all poor blind ships eventually smash?"

A cool knowing look and then a little quirk of the mouth and shoulders as if to say, _'I cannot help my own brilliance.' _"Would you care for a dirigible," he enquired, "so you might more easily look down upon me?" He sounded faintly amused and so, _so_ superior. "Although I must say, you're doing a sterling job without..."

"By god - you can be an insufferably conceited bastard. You know that?"

The reply was swift and bland. "Naturally since as you have just pointed out, I know _everything_."

His mood passed sour and became brackish in the extreme. "You're _unbearable."_

**III.**

The door had slammed shut at past midnight on a chill February night and Watson had been too tired, to cosy-by-the-fire and sick of always giving ground to follow.

He was being childish, he knew. A man did not sulk by the hearth in a state of petulance and silence, a scowl marring his features and a bitter twist to his lip. No. A man should have stood in good time, offered contrition so the matter might have been dealt with: thrashed out verbally (or physically, he wasn't above such action) – swiftly broken and soonest mended. But instead the words from his mouth had been unpleasant, designed to wound as only a best friend and confident could.

_"You're a damn automaton Holmes – if some dock-side steel-skinner stabbed at your heart the flesh would bloom open to reveal the most intricate clockwork in England!"_

To his astonishment Holmes had not retaliated with either wit or reprimand, but dropped the bow he held in his hand and stalked out of the house in his shirtsleeves.

Afterwards, in the silence of the sitting room, no longer blinded by his own rage, Watson had recalled all that he'd seen but not observed. How Holmes had stood, hand holding the bow slightly raised as if to ward off a blow or make some conciliatory gesture. How the look of calculation in his too-wide and expressive eyes had been stripped in an instant, the diamond-hard stare unbelievably shattered to reveal vulnerability, pain and regret beneath.

That had been six days ago.

The detective had not been seen since.


	5. Lifeblood of the City

**Lifeblood of the City**

**I.**

_Opponent the first: severe over-crowding of mouth, strong halitosis and chronic tension in left side of face – likely deep corruption of the molars. Full weight punch to left-back of jaw. (Burst knuckles likely, chance of breaking fingers on impact: small.) Resulting agony will incapacitate subject for twenty seconds, minimum._

_Opponent the second: Right-handed, will swing as such. Block. Is advancing in years, muscle has run to fat – relies on weight to carry the brunt of his arguments. Turn away, duck down from weak left jab, will be too slow to follow. Lower spine compressed and stiff from strain of weight – risk of slipped disk: significant. From lower vantage point, use momentum for cross-cut to kidney. Will spin, anticlockwise, exposing back. Two-inch punch on edge of spine. Resulting impact of nerve-tissue into spinal column will render subject unable to stand or put on own trousers for next five weeks. _

_Opponent the third: Physically fit, obvious brawler - however posture canted to the left, legs bowed, Rickets, possible curvature of spine. Hip will be weakened. Heel-kick to upper thigh before he closes. Will stagger and come up swinging. Block, retreat, feign right, kick again. Leg will give; sidestep. Employ 'dragon's tail' strike: collar bone will snap, nerve cluster at base of neck punctured, intense pain followed by temporary paralysis of left side._

_Opponent the first, rejoining fray at two thirds capacity..._

His infallible chain of logic was suddenly derailed as he caught the play of light along metal.

_Knife: will attempt killing blow, too close to successfully evade. Twist, sacrificing full use of left arm. Whilst blade is embedded in triceps muscle, deploy double-handed scissor strike to break wrist and pull back before pain hits..._

His thoughts were then shattered entirely as the blade scored across his chest and plunged on, skittering against ribs and angling ever inwards...

_Oh._

The vertical axis of existence rotated into horizontal as the cobblestones rushed to meet him, slamming the breath from his lungs and, briefly, all thoughts from his head.

He could hear a pounding rush like the ocean, waves crashing in fear and fury against the stone-isle of his body; eventually he realised it was his heart beating in a stuttered rhythm, and the pounding was the blood in his veins. For a moment it seemed as if he viewed the scene from above, the whole panorama spread out for him to see.

_Opponent the first looks to his comrades. Sees third man lying corpse-still and second man writhing under influence of injury. Decides discretion is the better part of valour: bodily drags Second to feet and forces him to move, supporting him by the upper waist. (Probability spine will be irreparably weakened from this robust activity – high. Chance of full recovery: minimal.) Exits at end of lane into __Farrin's Court by Scaren Steps__. Pace on foot, three miles an hour over short distances. Home turf and known bolt holes approximately one mile East along India Docks. Lestrade's men will only catch them if they don't go to ground in Jago's Isle. _

_St Luke's Lane now almost silent. Opponent three still breathing but unconscious and showing no signs of immediate recovery. Rest of lane empty save for unknown obstruction obscured by darkness on cobbles by Southwest wall. _

_Floored mass looks unusually small and crumpled, as if not a man at all. Scant light from windows in Coldshaw Rents reveals white skin showing stark in the gloom, all darker cloth seeping into shadows. Male, age uncertain – late thirties? – hair dark, clothes sturdy. Skin of unnatural hue, pupils dilated, breathing shallow but rapid. Spreading stain faintly discernable upon breast of coat. Material shows clean-edged cut roughly half foot in length through weave. Blood-loss, notable, becoming unhealthy. Breath hitching, fingertips spasming turning bruise-black: shock setting in. Need of medical attention: pressing. Will become immediate in the next ten minutes..._

Holmes snapped back to his body with a pained, aborted inhalation of breath. He wondered if his communiqué had been delivered, and if, in the end, his calculations for the timing of matters would prove incorrect.

Lastly, given their argument and his behaviour, he tried to gauge the probability of Watson turning up at all.

**II.**

He'd been on the point of retiring for the evening when he heard the jangle of the front door bell. He raised his head and an eyebrow as the damn thing continued to ring; whoever it was would break the bell-cord if they kept that racket up.

A visitor for Holmes no doubt, he surmised, the Stygian hue of his thoughts verging on bitterness. Well, the great detective was absent, on hiatus, and would return if and when he deigned to grace the world with his presence and not a moment before. Watson had wasted two days in enquiry after his friend – although why he bothered he didn't know. Tracking down Holmes was like looking for an oak leaf in a hazel thicket: a hazel thicket the size of London at that.

The bell was still clamouring, a tinny shrill sound. Watson raised his eyes heavenwards. Mrs Hudson was likely abed, and ten to midnight was not a civilised time for social calls. For goodness sake, would they give over and leave?

With a noise that was more growl then sigh, the doctor left the sitting room and descended the stairs, his boot-heels ringing out his irritation as clearly as the door bell clamoured it urgency. He wrenched open the front door and loomed on the threshold with what he hoped was a suitably forbidding set to his features. He then adjusted his scowl downwards to the whippet-thin and coal-grimed urchin that was hanging off the bell-pull. "What?" he snapped.

The gutter snipe was un-cowed by his ire, if anything the urchin looked either intrigued or impressed (it was hard to say with certainty which beneath the grime.) "Gotta note f'the Doctor."

The scowl set, concern gnawing at the edges. "What is it?"

A small hand produced a square of paper like a very sorry magician at the finale of his trick. "'Ere. Emmy was meant t'run it at 'alf eleven if there weren't word, but she 'ad one of 'er loopy nights, so Charlie gave it t'me. Is why I'm late."

The Doctor's stomach was already tensing against the wash of ice-water that seemed to have sprung up there as he took the proffered missive. It was foolscap, folded and since begrimed, with hasty words scribed in black ink; the slant and sharp curve of them showing clearly they were Holmes'.

_Limehouse. _

_Coldshaw Rents, off Narrow Street._

_Bring your revolver. _

_Or mine._

Watson made a peculiar sound as he tried his best to swallow all the words that manners forbade him to say.

"Best shift y'self," the urchin advised. "Emmy said t'urry an' t'make sur I 'ad you a cab – but 'e won't wait f' the likes o'me."

Watson re-set his gaze to take in the fog-addled street and the hansom waiting there. He nodded to the driver, refocused with consternation on the urchin and said, "I'll get my coat."

**III.**

He recognised the slight and dishevelled figure with uncertain gait coming up Northey Street towards him on corner of Cable Street. He'd been on foot himself: cabbies didn't drive past the Commercial after dark if they could help it, too many opium dens and too close to the Ratcliff Rookery. "What the hell have you been up to?" he called softly. "You been brawling again?"

For the life of him Holmes couldn't remember and didn't care either. He just knew with a certainty most devoutly faithful would kill for, that for Watson to leave would cause the sky to fall down onto his head with a vengeance that was truly biblical. "Glad you could make it... Stay – stay a while," he asked without a shred of shame, trudging unevenly through muddy street and abattoir-slurry with equal inattention.

His forehead creased; staying was not a sane option, not when he looked like he might have two crown in his pocket and Holmes was half-cut. They'd both either end up dead in a gutter or he'd end up shooting a lot of people. Neither option especially appealed right now. He wondered how much drink it had taken to put the slur in the detective's words. "You called, and, like a good foot soldier, I followed my marching orders. So here I am."

He smiled wanly, a foolish dizzy sort of smile. "Yes. You are..."

"Exhausted, freezing, and left in the dark – as usual," he complained. Watson's expression began to pinch beneath his hat. "Holmes, what have you been doing?"

Ah - did he really sound that bad? "Midnight stroll is all," he tried to reassure him.

Watson's scowl showed clear the mix of scorn and disbelief such statement deserved. "A midnight stroll between a thieves gaff and a shanty town?"

His reply was in a voice that was suddenly both lost and alone: "I - I'm tired." His world began to turn gritty and uncertain at the edges.

"What have you taken?" the doctor asked, tense. For godsake, he hadn't been chasing the dragon all night had he? _Bloody Idiot..._

It wouldn't do to lose his temper: he was going to have to get them both back home, then he'd likely need to stay up all night with Holmes as he puked into a basin. Only then, in the morning when the crisis was over could he bloody the man's nose for his rank stupidity. Holmes' fugue silence unnerved him. He closed the distance between them. "Holmes! Are you hurt?"

For the longest instance he struggled to make sense of the words. "Barely a lick, dear boy," he informed the doctor at last with airy indifference, his voice rasping in his throat.

"Christ," he swore and worse besides. "How bad is it? Are you bleeding?"

He recalled the initial flood of warmth and the alarming puddle he'd left behind to congeal amidst the cobbles and slurry in the chill night air. He let his head loll forward and looked at the front of his coat; it was thick wool, double-breasted, buttoned and black, and showed little. He could feel beneath it however the layers of cotton and worsted gabardine slicked to his skin, heavy with the scent of copper. "...Yes." His legs lost all interest in holding him up and he collapsed with a boneless sort of grace against the doctor and down into the gutter.

Watson dropped beside him with a haste that sent twinges down his leg. "How much blood have you lost? _Holmes!_ How much have you lost? More than a bowlful?"

He stared at the memory of the ruby-wet street stones, trying to calculate the liquid's volume but unable to make his thoughts sit straight enough to attempt even the simplest arithmetic. "How big is the bowl?" he asked at length.

"This isn't good..." Watson opinioned, sounding displeased. "Where's the wound?" His hands encountered the damp warmth of the coat as he asked; he began unbuttoning it in haste. "What is it this time?" he demanded as he worked. "Burn, cut, gun shot...?"

"Shoulder," he managed. "Right handed thrust... from a low stance. Five inch blade. Glorified kitchen apparatus," he said distractedly. "Deflected somewhat by the weave of the wool. Edge caught the light as he struck." He had no idea where the words came from. "Thought I moved fast enough. Didn't."

If Watson heard his friend's ramblings he ignored them. He drew his breath in with a hiss when he uncovered the wound. "You're an idiot," he growled, struggling out of his jacket and waistcoat, unmindful of the cold night air but keeping half an eye on the posse of wasted Sunday-gentlemen and whores passing on the other side of the street. Thankfully they were all too wrapped in each other and the lingering curls of poppy-bliss to notice the drama unfurling at their feet. He bundled up the waistcoat to make a compress, another piece of clothing sacrificed to Holmes and his insanities. He grabbed the man's right hand, pulling it across his chest and clamping it upon the material. "Hold that," he ordered.

The thought of touching that bloody nest of pain, let alone pressing down, made him sick with an odd mix of fear and revulsion. "Knife," he said, a fault line of panic undermining his voice.

"I can see that, old chap," he muttered tightly, pulling at his tie and wishing he'd worn a scarf because that at least would have had more use as a bandage. "We need to get you back home." The makeshift dressing was tied securely with the speed and competence of one used to working in far worse conditions. A cold London street was practically paradise even if it was Limehouse – no sand to worry about and no one was trying to kill them, leastways not if the cut-throats and opium fiends stayed away. "Can you walk?"

He thought it more likely he could climb sunbeams to heaven than actually stand, but somehow he was levered to his feet in an unpleasant rush of pain and vertigo.

"Penny for a suck, mister?"

Watson barely recognised his own voice as it snarled back at the ancient 'virgin' who'd appeared in a swirl of muddy skirts like a contagion carried by a curlicue of fog.

"Jenny Penny," Holmes enunciated with difficulty in a voice barely his own, mostly a borrowed leer. "Wot 'ave I told you?"

The emaciated and badly painted face cracked into a grin. "Sherry!" she shrieked. "Ain't got the clap," she confided happily, "kept off tha Lascars an' Mally-men like you said. Vi didn't though – she's fare riddled wiv it, silly bitch." She peered blearily at them both. "You 'ad a skinful? Can come t'my room if y'like..."

Whatever Holmes had meant to reply was eviscerated by a sodden cough that bent him double and stole what scant reserves of strength he had remaining.

"Run to Commercial Street and get us a cab and I'll give you five pounds," Watson promised, although with the strain it sounded more like a threat.

The whore dithered for a moment, but the hope of five bob won out against whatever it was about the scene that disquieted her. She turned tail and legged it with a call of, "Betta move y'arse Sherry!" flung over her shoulder.

Things became disconnected after that, like a rope of granddame's pearls that had snapped, scattering the precious beads into a thousand different corners. Moments and thoughts were sent rolling through time with vast blank chasms between them where the world rushed on and he wasn't aware of any of it. Light flared blindingly and then darkness swallowed him with every passing lamp, streets merged together (or was it only one road? - he didn't remember Caroline Street being so long) as existence continued to skip like a watch whose cogs were missing teeth. Horses hooves and carriage wheels rattled a cacophony through his skull; words were spoken, a maelstrom of sound, and then he was still but the world continued to move. He could smell the worn scent of leather upholstery, and closer the sharp tang of fear-sweat overlain with something heavy and metallic. Burnished kettles... pig-iron skillets... rust... oh. Blood.

Watson looked down at the body in his grasp with its stained shirt and dark hair, watched as it shuddered, almost a convulsion, senses trying to come alive to assess the danger they believed was waiting for them. Tension – pathetic really in such a broken thing – but the doctor knew that this mind could demand feats over matter which would floor a lesser man.

A sliver of hope, of clarity, lit the dark eyes. His jaw worked, lips struggling with the words but weakness robbing him of the breath to deliver. He coughed, a wretched gravely sound, and there were flecks of red on his lips. "C-cold," he muttered, and felt a pair of arms tighten around him. "Watson?"

There was a shred of doubt, so unheard of in that voice, and it tore his heart asunder. "I'm here. It will be all right. Just hold on, old boy. Just hold on..."

A smile, shaky but beatific – the smile of a dying angel, the strangest and truest to ever grace the visage of a city champion. For a moment he fought for focus, for lucidity. But some things were beyond even his grasp. Knowing he was safe at last, he surrendered to the numbness that pulled so hungrily at his soul, hearing a ragged voice call him name as he fell.


	6. Resolution

**Resolution I.**

His eyes snapped open as he twitched into consciousness, gasping in pain as he did so. An insistent pair of hands were pinning him down as if to lock him into his own agony. He could smell blood and carbolic soap overlying the more comforting suggestion of paper, tobacco, beeswax and chemicals that saturated the Baker Street rooms. He wanted to scream but couldn't draw breath past the pain to do it.

"Keep steady," someone ordered. "I'm almost done. You start thrashing now... and I swear - I will punch you."

_Watson._ Glorious bedside manner, as always.

"Trust you - to come round when I'm half way through _stitching_. Any damn excuse... to be obstreperous. You never - do anything - the easy way, do you?" The words were pulled and clipped in time with the pain in Holmes' chest, following the path of the needle as the doctor laboured.

Time danced endlessly across burning nerves; a tide of acid that seared his body with each beat of his heart. He wondered if he could make it stop – his heart, or the pain, he was long past caring which.

The palm of a hand, calloused and warm, touched the side of his face, calling his fragmented attention to the waking world.

"Come on. Holmes. Try to drink this – it will help."

He wanted to remark on the irony of his friend pouring opiates down his throat, but at that moment the hand slipped to the back of his skull, raising his head and causing star-white lances of pain to radiate from his chest. A cup was pressed against his lips. Liquid, sweet, fiery and unbearably brackish washed over his tongue, forcing him to swallow or choke.

"That's it," Watson coaxed, tipping the cup again.

A second mouthful of liquid down his throat and then the last; the world tilted sideways and tendrils of burning cold wrapped around him and pulled him down into nothingness.

**II.**

His eyes rolled in their sockets, seeking light, and he blinked to oblige them. He awoke to the sound of crows cawing and to an agony that seemed to grow more acute with every passing second. Desperately he tried to shift onto his side, to rise, with the confused notion that perhaps if he moved away the pain would be left behind. But the pain stayed with him: he was fixed upon it like some exotic moth tacked to a specimen board, a bright silver pin of suffering stabbing him where he lay. His eyes were open but the play of light and shade upon shapes held no meaning for him; he was storm blind, as if he'd stared too hard at the lightning and it had taken his sight in payment. The air jolted in and out of his chest, each breath a soundless whimper.

Light and darkness moved. "You back with us, Holmes?"

A cloth, damp and cold was pressed against his forehead; he shivered as if he'd just been doused in melt-water.

"It's all right, you're all right," the voice admonished gently. "Your fever's coming down. Seems that little fold of quinine was enough after all." The words were matter-of-fact, comforting, their jovial blandness trying to hide a gulf of twinned worry and relief.

Holmes recognised the voice, knew that the name which matched it was within his reach should he choose to take it.

"Water's being boiled now so we can put a hot press on your shoulder and change the bindings. Infection hasn't taken hold, which is a mercy." A sigh. "You were lucky."

Funny how 'lucky' felt a lot like being stabbed.

The cloth was moved, wiped carefully across the edges of his face and taken away. Dark and light stirred again as if in stately dance. There was the quiet click of a full hunter opening and then the snap of the case as it was shut once more. "After you're bandaged again I can give you something for the pain." A pause, slight and awkward as if the speaker was trying to explain himself back into the wounded man's good graces. "I know many doctors salt the wound with 'caine powder, but it interferes - slows the healing. And it doesn't do to take laudanum twice in six hours."

Somewhere above him he could hear the man's voice (Watson, it was Watson) talking about bandages and muscle damage, blood-loss and other such inconveniences. He sounded strange, concerned. No, on reflection the tension in his voice suggested he was downright infuriated – epically so in fact. Holmes knew the doctor's anger was meant to gain his attention, but he hadn't the strength to rise to it.

A creak of furniture and an overly theatrical sigh. "I've only got one question."

He was supposed to respond, he knew he was from the belligerent lilt to the words. _Only one?_

"Who is Emmy?" A pause that likely contained a sharp and searching look. "Who is Charlie? Who was the grubby little Street Arab that delivered your summons to me at twelve o'clock at night? How long does one have to spend dossing in the Ratcliff before the unfortunates there give you a nick-name?"

The answer to the last one was coincidentally very similar to the answer of where he'd been for the past six days, but he didn't think it worth mentioning. "W-where was Emmy?" Holmes rasped, unhappy with the apparent change in the plans he'd wrought.

"She – I'm assuming it's a she you understand – slap-dash of me, but there we are... She was having what I'm reliably informed was a 'loopy night'. I scarcely dare ask," he added softly, "what that entails. But it was all right in the end because she sent word to some other little oik via Charlie."

"S-shouldn't... disparage them so." It was the wreckage of his usual dulcet tones. "Did... you give Harry a h-half-crown?"

A small sound of exasperation. "No. I was a little preoccupied at the time."

Holmes' brow furrowed and he twisted in his agitation as if he was of a mind to redress the issue at once.

"Stop that - do I have to tie you to the bed?"

Somehow he forced his voice to work again despite the weakness – it seemed important. "Only... if the bed's nailed to the floor," he rasped.

"Holmes! You truly are unbelievable! You disappear for days and then send word in the middle of the night so that I might find you half-dead in Docklands. A day later you're trying to stand so that you can give unfortunates pennies – have you no sense?" Watson asked, his weary voice rough with anger.

He drew breath to answer, too deep, too fast, and red agony stabbed through him causing tears to spark in his eyes. A strained growl came from his throat as he struggled to lock down the pain. There had been a thought in his head, something of import, but the doctor's complaining had dislodged it. The pain made everything so hard to hold on to. Hadn't there been a deal – a promise...? Fragments surfaced: a young wild-eyed thing, ragged coat, broken smile, an oriental carved ivory pipe but a steady hand and the smell of cheap tobacco not opium. "Emmy," he hissed. "Lives in the Rookery. T-takes care of the strays... Clever. Sober. Insane," he added with something like regret.

And with that, Watson understood. Holmes knew people from all walks of life, and although it was a given that he could insinuate himself seamlessly into any company he chose, that was always just a mask – a game. It was nearly impossible to discern what company he'd find truly to his liking and endure without pretense. Apparently some Bedlamite with a Nightingale complex had made the grade. "I didn't give Harry a half crown." Watson repeated. "I gave him a pound."

The detective made a short choking noise that could have either been pain, satisfaction or amusement, it was impossible to say.

"I was a little distracted at the time," the doctor grumbled wryly.

He let his breath hiss through his teeth, relieved. Emmy had a distressingly blind but accurate intuition; and with all those she watched over she was the very eyes and ears of the Rookery. But unlike he, her mind could not fathom all the data it collated – and so she drowned in her knowledge, struggling to shore every so often to send word of treasures from the deep. Bedlam had not helped her, and he did not wish to see such knowing eyes and such pertinent if haphazard information dragged once more beyond his reach.

"So, leaving aside the waifs and strays for the moment: what the hell were you up to?" He sounded deeply displeased.

"B-brawling in an alley." He knew this was Watson's revenge of sorts; if he'd proved he had strength enough to ask after lunatics then he obviously had strength enough to explain a six day absence from Baker Street that culminated in him bleeding all over the upholstery of a hackney carriage. "Was only three against one." He'd forgotten just how much air talking used up. "Pity about the knife." His mouth was a bitter line, irritated at his own stupidity.

"A lapse in your flawless reasoning?" Watson jibed.

"Yes," he admitted in a whisper. "Hurts w-worse than my ribs."

"Hm. So it must have been your pride, Holmes, that bled all over my shirt."

He shivered with mirth, knowing it could only end badly. "D-don't make me laugh. H-hurts."

**III.**

Watson walked in to discover Holmes was pressing tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. He put down the luncheon tray with a sigh. "Holmes, I really don't think you should excite your lungs with..."

He struck the lucifer, watching the doctor from beneath tired and long-lashed eyes. "Nonsense," he murmured around the stem of his pipe. "It was a mere scratch..."

"You've had several inches of steel do their best to fillet you! You've fourteen stitches. Not even a span to the right and it would have been your heart..."

The eyes that regarded him from the ash-pale face were sheer obsidian and just as sharp.

For a moment Watson thought he'd spit back some clever jibe about clockwork hearts – he'd have been tempted to in Holmes' place.

"A scratch – I am using your words dear boy, you said my lung was 'scratched'."

Good lord, even when the man was being reasonable he was incorrigible. "Look, as a physician..."

"Mine?"

"Yes – as your..."

His gaze was set to the middle distance, focused studiously on nowhere. "I don't recall appointing you the position – and I'm certain my memory is infallible in such matters..."

"Holmes..."

"Has Mrs Hudson usurped power of attorney whilst I slept?"

"Holmes..."

"Pernicious woman," he griped, caught up in his nightmarish flight of fancy.

"Holmes!" There was no fondness that time, only irritation.

He changed tack in an instant. "I have a case," he pointed out imperiously.

"A case of insufferability! And more besides," he muttered.

"So you remain..."

"Adamant." He sounded it too.

A short huff. "_I am not my brother's keeper_ indeed." A pause wherein he concentrated on breathing, his expression slightly puzzled as if realizing his body had betrayed him and wondering whom he could blame for such matters. His fingers twisted against the counterpane, the smallest admission of temporary defeat. "I do have a case you know," he offered, tentative, mildly petulant.

He managed not to smile, but his eyes crinkled with amusement. "I'm sure you do." He surveyed the room in general. "Goes without saying it's deeply perplexing - thoroughly urgent – very rum. And you will be quite unable to make the slightest headway whilst confined to your sickbed. _What a pity,"_ he dug.

Holmes' eyes shone jet-black. "Is that a challenge?"

"'Course it is, old cock. Pained and holed up in here, you won't catch a thing – other than maybe an infection. Possibly a flee. Or..."

"You're quite unashamedly transparent," the detective informed him.

Watson gave a brief, bright, grin of acknowledgement. "No doubt. So?"

Holmes considered. "Monday."

"Monday?"

"I'll have solved it by then."

"Without leaving your rooms?"

"Naturally."

It was a compromise, Watson knew. Holmes wouldn't offer such terms unless he was relatively sure of himself; on the other hand it meant only four full days of bed-rest and then the deal was at an end and Holmes could do as he pleased. Still, it was better than nothing. "Done."

"No wager?" he asked with sly surprise.

He shook his head in mock sorrow as he headed towards the door. "Trying to kick the habit. Eat something, would you?"

He snorted his derision, but when he looked away there was a shadow of pleasure gracing his expression.


End file.
